Jan 23, 2016

Breaking my own rule by telling you part of my ¨drinking¨ saga. I am reflecting about my life as I type my ¨personal¨ story. Not an unsual thing since it is an autobiography. I can see as I type/reflect and write about my life in the sixties there is much drinking, drugging and lots of self-medicating by me. In San Francisco and in Arizona I drank without much restraint several times a week. I took me with me when I moved to Arizona, then back to California four years later. Interesting, now, after more than half of my life sober, I'd forgotten most of the out-of-control everyday antics that led me to another whole new version of ¨being¨ in my later life, at 35 years old...I'd forgotten the madness that helped me reach out for a saner based existence. I'll share some of my earlier real life experience which led me to wanting me back from the addiction of alcoholism.

Living in Arizona, late sixties, I experienced it through heavily tinted/medicated/inebriated eyes. After arriving in Arizona I set out to make friends. I knew not one person and there were only a couple of Gay bars (as opposed to San Francisco/San Jose area dozens). I liked my new job as a buyer at Goldwaters. Everyone at Goldwaters seemed to be ¨Conservatives¨ but very accepting of the rights of the individual...I was amazed. I was fond of my coworkers at Goldwater's, but, I knew right away my social life must reinvent itself..finding a ¨Gay¨ outside social life in Phoenix was going to be a challenge. Phoenix/Scottsdale was not a Gay destination (yet). There was a Gay bar by the the name of Diamond Lil´s on the ¨right¨ side of town and another two Gay bars deep into the downtown bowels of old Phoenix. The downtown bars were totally out of question and not well patronized but LIL´S I could tolerate. The newish bar had small tables and plenty of air conditioning (no dancing). Lil's, in a strip mall, was the only place where younger Gay people, out-of-towners and/or newcomers like me met. That was good (enough). The ¨local¨ Gay people seemed quite closeted, shy and secretive and needed a little ¨organizing.¨ A small group of us, more experienced with Gay life we out-of-staters, helped them! We found one another, poco a poco, eventually...then, finally, we created some excitement in the night hot Arizona air. We made up a social group of (those of us sentenced to the calm Gaylife in Arizona) who began to have FUN in the ¨Valley of the Sun¨...Maricopa, Country, Arizona. Here we are! We grew, we had parties, we made Lesbian friends, Bi sexual and Heterosexual friends too...we made the place move with our ¨group!¨ Almost every Sunday we went tubing down the Verde River and had late afternoon cook-outs afterward...Mondays were a struggle after all that fun in the sun! Lot's of dinner parties, meeting new acquaintances and laughing all night (or at least until one o´clock when the bars closed). Later another bar, with dancing, Mi Casa/Su Casa opened up the street from Diamond Lil's..it rocked.I went to New York and Los Angeles on buying trips from Goldwater's. Since I had spent my high school years in Los Angeles I knew my way around the ¨City of Angels¨ and Hollywood/West Hollywood too...Los Angeles was where my family lived and I considered Los Angeles home (I still do and I have not been there for decades and my family has mostly all departed). New York was/is wonderful. I had visited New York as a buyer for Hart's in San Jose and going back more regularly for Goldwaters was inspiring! New York always takes my breath away with the real possibilities! 24/7 real possibilities of enchantment, romance and many discoveries. Some of my San Francisco friends had moved to New York city in the 60's...I had pals in NYC and quite often I would use the per diem for Hotel/etc and party with the friends I stayed with in The Village. I also received lots of ¨pairs¨ of Theatre tickets and saw most everything on Broadway (with great seats - the vendors paid for them) during those years! The bars in NYC were open all-night. I drank all-night. Almost always I would have a heavy work schedule in the market (or at the 5th Ave office of Associated Dry Goods) each day. I took tranquilizers, I drank at lunch, I survived myself. I was young, filled with energy but DREADED each hung-over work day. When staying in Hotels I sometimes would call the house doctor in the morning for ¨vitamin¨ shots (which I think were pure sedatives because I felt ¨perfect¨ immediately). I pretended I was alive inside. I have always lived in a world of my own especially neurotic, imaginative, overdrive. I was, sometimes I am still, hiper or edgy and suffer from claustrophobia and fear of heights! I find most every person, every place/thing and *situation* fascinating (both good ones and not so much). I can become rivited on the bazaar and not hear a word spoken around me...thirty seconds short of obsessed , I come back and I move along. When I had appointments high up in New Yorks Empire State building or when I would have lunch dates at the ¨ Copter Club¨ on TOP of the Pan Am building I would get very nervous...my shakey hands would swet...I needed a drink (or two) and I would find a bar and have vodkas on the rocks (you can't smell vodka..verdad?)...then, and only then, would I ascend in the elevator (all the while thinking about the great distance as I was taking myself away from the ground level...swet, swet) . Then, post lift off, I would join in and pretend that I wasn't scared to death when they seated me next to the window (always, so I could enjoy the view)! Most of my 20's I was hung over to the point of feeling sick, upset and different than everyone else...I was (but I didn't want them to know I was)...I am really good at playing pretend with myself and others. to be continued

Puerto Rican Americans marching and celebrating on 5th Avenue, New York City, during the annual Puerto Rican Day Parade Sen. Patrick Le...

REAL HERO/REAL LIFE: Bishop John Shelby Spong

“I was simply interpreting a rising consciousness,” he said. “Whether it was race or women or homosexual people, the issue was always the same: fighting against anything that dehumanizes a child of God on the basis of an external characteristic.” Bishop John Shelby Spong (click on his photo)

¨Churches say that the expression of love in a heterosexual monogamous relationship includes the physical, the touching, embracing, kissing, the genital act - the totality of our love makes each of us grow to become increasingly godlike and compassionate. If this is so for the heterosexual, what earthly reason have we to say that it is not the case with the homosexual?¨ Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu